Residency in Adult General Psychiatry - Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine at the Zucker Hillside Hospital

Our vision - outstanding clinicians, emerging leaders in psychiatry

The Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine at the Zucker Hillside Hospital offers a four-year residency training program in general psychiatry. Our vision is to develop outstanding clinicians and emerging leaders that become tomorrow’s pioneers.

Program overview

Our program embraces the biological, psychological, and socio-cultural aspects of psychiatry. In particular, we focus on the integration of neuroscience, research, and evidence-based decision-making with outstanding training in the diagnosis and management of psychiatric illness. Our trainees graduate with well-developed skills that cross the ‘dualisms’ of our field: pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, acute and chronic, mind and brain, gene and environment, individual and population health, inpatient and outpatient, consultation and management.

Our trainees become outstanding clinicians. They also develop into emerging leaders in their chosen area of interest – whether that is clinical care, research, education, health systems innovation, or public policy. Our advising program provides each resident with a 4-year faculty advisor. Through regular meetings, the faculty advisors help trainees set career and learning goals, identify mentors, and discover where the ‘passion of the heart meets the need of the world’. Our pathways to expertise program helps trainees transform their passion into expertise. Pathways enables residents to craft an individually tailored set of elective experiences culminating in a scholarly work or innovation. Our research track, an intensive pathway for residents aspiring to become a physician investigator, has been very successful.

Learning environment & community

Psychiatric and addictive disorders are among the most common and disabling illnesses. However, historically there has been inadequate recognition of emotional and behavioral issues in general medical care, which is a major contributor to higher risk, excess cost and poor outcomes.

Healthcare reform emphasizes the unmet needs of those suffering from these disorders. Psychiatry offers enormous opportunities in an unusually broad range of areas. Our learning environment will position you for this future.

Our training programs have the unique advantage of a large and highly specialized range of psychiatric services at the Zucker Hillside Hospital, which is embedded within one of the largest health systems in the country, North Shore-LIJ Health System, and one of the country’s newest medical schools - Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine. The residency benefits from all three of these institutions.

The Zucker Hillside Hospital serves as the psychiatric division of Long Island Jewish Medical Center. It is solely dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, and research of mental illnesses. For decades a pioneer in developing new and more treatments for patients with severe and persistent mental illness, the hospital was recognized in 2013 as one of the best hospitals in the country for psychiatric care by U.S. News and World Report.

The ZHH offers the full continuum of behavioral health services – a 228-bed inpatient facility, partial and day hospital programs, and a comprehensive array of ambulatory services. This forms an integrated setting ideal to learn the full breadth of clinical psychiatry.

North Shore-LIJ Health System includes 17 additional hospitals, three skilled nursing facilities and more than 400 ambulatory practices. This scale creates unparalleled elective opportunities for our trainees and job opportunities for our graduates.

The health system continues to be recognized as a national leader in quality improvement. As a trainee, you will have the opportunity to join an interprofessional team that is embedded in several primary care clinics. When rotating on the psychiatric emergency service, residents learn how to utilize tele-psychiatry to serve other hospitals within the system that do not provide psychiatry coverage. This and other experiences prepare our trainees to practice and lead in future health systems that make behavioral health more integrated, accessible, and effective.

North Shore-LIJ is also home to the largest ‘corporate university’ in the healthcare industry – the Center for Learning and Innovation, which houses the nation’s largest patient simulation center – the Patient Safety Institute. Beginning with the first week of internship, our program uses standardized patient experiences to help our trainees practice and acquire core skills.

The Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine is a unique partnership between two outstanding Long Island institutions. The first allopathic medical school in Nassau County and the first new medical school in the New York metropolitan area in more than 35 years, the School of Medicine welcomed their first class in 2011.

The medical school has already established an international reputation as a premier “Millennial Medical School” that is re-inventing medical education. Our residents learn effective instructional methods as they teach and supervise Hofstra students. And, for those interested in an academic career that focuses on medical education, the medical school offers terrific opportunities to develop specialized skills in modern pedagogy.

Community is essential for learning, professional development, and wellbeing. The ZHH is known for its family-like, collegial environment. We are diverse and welcoming. Residents are invited into this community and form deep roots during their training. The residency program plays an active role in facilitating this process. Our ‘annual liturgy’ of events include a welcome gathering for interns in early July, an annual dinner dance in the Spring, and graduation in June – all of which bring faculty, staff, and residents together to celebrate important milestones and connect with each other. We also host a summer BBQ and Winter Holiday Party for all residents and two fantastic retreats – a half day Fall Retreat at a local country club and a weekend retreat in beautiful Montauk, NY, in the Spring. Fun (and often hilarious) activities planned by residents on the retreat committee allow residents to get to know each other better and further develop self-care skills.

Each residency class has a support group led by a faculty member – these groups facilitate peer support and reflection on the challenges of developing a professional identity as a psychiatrist. The groups meet weekly during intern year and several times a month during the remaining years. In addition, the Resident Council – with representatives from all four classes – organizes regular movie nights, a monthly “lunch and learn”, career nights, and other social and educational events. The program directors meets with each class once a month and with each resident at least twice a year. Individual mentoring and advising are actively encouraged. These regular interactions help support residents and identify opportunities for continuous improvement in the program.

Application process

Applicants interested in the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine Psychiatry Residency Program at the Zucker Hillside Hospital should apply through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS), which allow applications starting Sept. 15. Our residency program participates in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). The NRMP Code for our training program is 1700400C0.

No applications are reviewed after Dec. 31.

Essential application information includes:

Common application form

Curriculum vitae

USMLE or COMLEX transcript - A passing score on USMLE Step I and Step II (Clinical Knowledge and Clinical Skills) is required for all trainees prior to beginning a Hofstra North Shore-LIJ GME program. To meet this requirement, applicants should have passed USMLE Step II (CK and CS) prior to mid-February in order to be eligible for our rank order list. In selected cases, with the approval of the Program Director and the Office of GME, applicants may be placed on a NSLIJ rank order list without the USMLE Step II (CK and/or CS) score.

Medical or osteopathic school transcript

Medical Student Performance Evaluation or Dean's letter

A personal statement

Three (3) letters of recommendation - At least one letter needs to be from a faculty psychiatrist who can comment directly on your clinical performance in psychiatry. Of the remaining letters, we prefer that at least one come from a non-psychiatrist faculty who can comment directly on your clinical work in a different specialty (such as internal medicine, pediatrics, or other core specialties).

ECFMG Status Report, if applicable

Applicants to the Psychiatry Residency Training Program must be graduates of a United States or Canadian medical school accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) or the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), or Foreign Medical Graduates who have been certified through the ECFMG at the time of application. All Foreign Medical Graduates must be certified through the ECFMG at the time of application and apply through ERAS. The North Shore-LIJ Health System training programs accept only H1B and J-1 visas sponsored through the ECFMG. Clinical experience in the United States is not required, though strongly encouraged within the prior 3 years.

Faculty

Leadership

John Q. Young, MD, MPP

Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Education, Department of Psychiatry, Hofstra North-Shore LIJ School of Medicine